39742: Is it essential to offer expiation as well as making up missed fasts, if a person delayed making them up with no excuse?

I am a young woman who missed making up some of the fasts I owed in past years. Is it permissible to make up the missed fasts only, or should I fast and also offer expiation? If expiation is required then how much is it?.

Praise be to Allaah.

It is not permissible for a person to delay making up the
missed Ramadaan fasts that he owed until the next Ramadaan begins with no
excuse. If he does that then he has committed a sin. The scholars differed
as to whether he has to offer expiation as well as make them up because of
this delay or not.

Our advice to the sister who asked this question is to strive
to make up the fasts that she owes with no delay, so that she does not
burden herself and it then becomes difficult for her to make them up.

With regard to the issue of expiation, we have already
discussed the scholarly differences of opinion concerning this matter in
questions no 26865 and
21710.

From the two questions mentioned above, you may know that you
do not have to offer expiation as well as making up the fasts, according to
the more correct view, rather what you have to do is to repent to Allaah and
resolve not to do such a thing again. If you offer expiation as well as
making up the missed fasts in order to be on the safe side, there is nothing
wrong with that. The expiation consists of feeding one poor person for each
day.